Whilst I indulge a hope that the course to which I have objected will no longer be insisted on by His Majesty’s ministers, permit me to renew to your excellency the sincere assurance that the United States earnestly desire that every subject of difference between the two countries should be amicably adjusted and all their relations placed upon the most friendly footing.  Although they believe that any further discussion of the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty would be wholly unprofitable, they will be at all times ready to renew the discussion of that article or to examine any question which may remain to be adjusted between them and France.

I request your excellency to accept, etc.

JAMES BROWN.

[Extract of a letter (No. 3) from James Brown to the Secretary of State, dated Paris, May 11, 1824.]

I have the honor to inclose a copy of the answer of the minister of foreign affairs to the letter which I addressed to him on the 27th ultimo, upon the subject of the claims of our citizens against the French Government.  You will perceive that no change has been made in the determination expressed to Mr. Gallatin of connecting in the same discussion the question on the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty of cession and the claims of the citizens of the United States against France.  In expressing this resolution it has not been considered necessary even to notice the arguments made use of to induce them to adopt a different opinion.

Viscount Chateaubriand to Mr. Brown.

[Translation.]

PARIS, May 7, 1824.

SIR:  The object of the letter which you did me the honor to address to me on the 28th of April is to recall the affair of American claims, already repeatedly called up by your predecessors, that they may be regulated by an arrangement between the two powers, and that in this negotiation the examination of the difficulties which were raised about the execution of the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty should not be included.

Although the claims made by France upon this last point be of a different nature from those of the Americans, yet no less attention ought to be paid to arrange both in a just and amicable manner.

Our claims upon the eighth article had already been laid before the Federal Government by His Majesty’s plenipotentiary when he was negotiating the commercial convention of 24th June, 1822.

The negotiators not agreeing upon a subject so important, the King’s Government did not wish this difficulty to suspend any longer the conclusion of an arrangement which might give more activity to commerce and multiply relations equally useful to the two powers.  It reserves to itself the power of comprehending this object in another negotiation, and it does not renounce in any manner the claim which it urged.

It is for this reason, sir, that my predecessors and myself have constantly insisted that the arrangements to be made upon the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty should be made a part of those which your Government were desirous of making upon other questions still at issue.